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Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

calpaterson.com

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Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#351

Post by lumberingjack »

zbuf wrote: post #198
firefoxd wrote: post #97

The hardest thing to see here is that we don't have a solution. Firefox makes money by setting google as the default search. Google is its biggest competitor. There are no obvious other revenue stream. Also, let's not pretend chrome sucks. Chrome is on top because it is an amazing browser (and you are googling stuff anyway). Firefox needs to change it's strategy, it needs to pull an Amazon. Amazon is the type of busi…

Is the Google funding enough to maintain the browser development (and participation in web standards) of Mozilla? It has always seemed like it should be. That focus could be a welcome simplicity to this. Long term you don't want a single donor, but this very simple mission then makes it easier to broaden that base of donations.

It would be plenty of money to do what they need to do if they weren't hiring people they didn't need simply to virtual signal somehow thinking that it will bring more users and just generally spending money where they don't need to. Just take a look at some of their employees Twitter's ridiculous office parties ridiculous retreat party culture.

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#352

Post by scarface74 »

coldtea wrote: post #331
jacquesm wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> t wasn't long ago that comments were shouting that this was the absolute most qualified person to lead Mozilla when others were questioning having a lawyer lead a tech company. I don't think you'll be able to attribute that quote to me. Eich fucked up, and should have realized that you can't be leading a flagship of diversity on the one hand and be a bigot on the other. But he resigned (he wasn't forced out, though…

> I don't think you'll be able to attribute that quote to me. Eich fucked up, and should have realized that you can't be leading a flagship of diversity on the one hand and be a bigot on the other Who asked Mozilla to be a "flagship of diversity"? What we wanted off them, and what their mission statement was, is a FOSS browser that supported the open web. Plus, one can be/believe whatever on their personal life, as l…

Let’s say that I’m a top notch software engineer working at Mozilla being paid half as much as I could be making at any other Big Tech company because I believe in the mission. Would I believe in the mission if my leadership opposed my fundamental right to be with the person I loved or would I go to one of the other tech companies that are always screaming diversity and pay more?

What side of the fence do you think Eich landed on when it came to health benefits for same sex couples?

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#353

Post by calpaterson »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #108

>This is baffling given that mobile Firefox has a rare feature for a mobile browser: it's able to install extensions and so can block ads. I'm not sure about the extent to which this is true? I dont think Firefox has extensions on iOS (probably not up to Mozilla). Meanwhile, the extension experience on Android is "bumpy" to put it lightly. Just a few weeks ago, FF mobile broke nearly every single extension (apparentl…

Sorry, I don't really know about ios. I was talking about Android where I've been blocking ads with firefox for yonks

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#354

Post by luckylion »

rvz wrote: post #194
AniseAbyss wrote: post #84

Focus on FF Android. The hundreds of millions coming online in the next few years will do so on Android smartphones.

But will still be using Chrome, instead of Firefox.

Adblock is a powerful feature. Especially on mobile, I feel like most prominent websites are hardly usable on Chrome.

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#355

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

panpanna wrote: post #266
bambax wrote: post #253

> Mobile browsing numbers are bleak: Firefox barely exists on phones, with a market share of less than half a percent. This is baffling given that mobile Firefox has a rare feature for a mobile browser: it's able to install extensions and so can block ads. This is true, and indeed very strange. I use FF on mobile and it works perfectly. So Mozilla's problems aren't only technical, there's also a question of market aw…

> I use FF on mobile and it works perfectly. Not anymore! To be consistent with their business screw ups, they addressed this with the latest updates. Now the mobile app a mess like the rest of Mozilla.

Yes, the latest update is rather horrible. Regular things take way more taps than before, some useful capabilities are gone (like NOT asking to save passwords in incognito mode!). I hope they are listening to feedback. I stalwartly use it still, but miss the previous version very much.

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#356

Post by MaxBarraclough »

antonyh wrote: post #306

I'd pay hansomely for Firefox but only if the funds go into development, not into fat cats wallets. I'd also pay to remove junk like Pocket, or rather I'd consider paying for Pocket as a separate service. It irks me that it's forced into my browser. I want to be free of Google. This includes Chromium which has too much of Google included. Mozilla is the last hope of a free (as in speech) internet. On iOS Apple have e…

> I'd pay hansomely for Firefox but only if the funds go into development, not into fat cats wallets.

Donations go to the Mozilla Foundation, not the Mozilla Corporation.

Both the overpaid leadership, and Firefox development, are the domain of the Mozilla Corporation.

Relevant discussion from a month ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24200395 , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24142097

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#357

Post by lewiscollard »

marcthe12 wrote: post #295
mattlondon wrote: post #245

Stupid question perhaps, but I thought Firefox was an open source project? Why does it need a company with highly-paid executives and HR departments and all that to exist? If Firefox/Mozilla the company goes out of business then .... nothing changes? Apart from of course a bunch of people sadly lose their full-time jobs and development speed slows dramatically as people are no longer working on it full-time and only…

Well web browsers are to complex to maintain by part time Dev unless you have an upstream to rebase on or do not mind in implementing new stuff. You need at least 10 to 20 full time Devs at the minimum and that's if you libaries for all web APIs which clearly Firefox and Chrome are not doing. I wish there was a way to browser modular frankly.

The GP referred to "highly-paid executives and HR departments and all that", not developers.

Still. There are some obvious counter-examples of development of extremely complex projects being community-driven under the aegis of much lighter-weight organisations than Mozilla. LibreOffice is an obvious one; The Document Foundation had (at the last report) total expenses of $679,000, with nearly all of that coming from user donations.

Edit to add source for the numbers: https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/LEat3j6nepdggNk#p...

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#358

Post by jacquesm »

dotancohen wrote: post #343
threatofrain wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We see Eich with his own browser vision and executive style over at Brave, where he is unencumbered by legacy bureaucracy or codebases. He wouldn’t have been as free if he were at Mozilla.

The problem is that we have the person who arguably most understands the domain of web browsers, online privacy, and all the legal and ethical aspect thereof, working on another Chromium-based browser. I do not need to elaborate on why a diverse browser ecosystem is important, there are enough threads on that already. Mozilla had this jewel, exactly what it needed to succeed and make the web a better place. He was at…

Sorry, but you're not going to paint Eich as a victim over what is a totally self inflicted wound.

And there is no argument from utility to be made here either along the lines of 'oh Eich may be a bigot, but look at that nice browser he gave us'. He has to work with the people around him and that scenario would have likely not panned out.

Instead, a large chunk of Mozilla/FireFox' employees may have walked if he had tried to hang on, or maybe he could have come around on the subject in a halfway believable way.

But he chose to walk instead, his loss, and ultimately, possibly our loss too.

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#359

Post by linspace »

jacquesm wrote: post #324
stef25 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> should have realized that you can't be leading a flagship of diversity on the one hand and be a bigot on the other Is it ridiculous to suggest we should just ignore what people think and do in their private lives? I both fully support gay marriage and couldn't give a rat's ass about what the maker of my browser thinks about it (Eich donated 1000$ to Prop 8, 12 years ago). The real problem is that you can pay to hav…

It's not about you and me. It is about Eich's ability to effectively lead Mozilla while being on the record about this stance regarding gay marriage. How many of Mozilla's employees are gay and/or in favor of gay marriage? If you alienate roughly 55% (possibly much more) or so of a group you are supposed to lead you have just made your life quite impossible. Eich probably did the right thing to resign, he would have…

That is the problem, the inability of a lot of people to disagree with each other. This completely good/bad classification of people. People can be wrong about gay marriage, abortion, climate change, immigration and a lot of different issues and still be right about a lot of other things and have other virtues and be good persons overall.

Re: Firefox usage is down despite Mozilla's top exec pay going up

#360

Post by globular-toast »

danielEM wrote: post #88

From my perspective - first and foremost question is - why the usage is going down so much? What makes people pick Chrome?

People love brands. Most people thought the internet and Google were the same thing before Chrome even came out.
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